Day Eighteen < | Challenge Home Page | > Day Twenty

The kids all wake up and scramble to get ready for school before Marnie, Bennie, and the twins are even conscious. By the time Bennie wakes up, it's mid morning, and he is in no mood to run the store again today. Checking his schedule, he knows he has to open up for yet another act tonight, and one job in one day is more than enough, he thinks. So, he grabs some breakfast, and goes to watch sports instead, leaving Marnie in charge of the twins. (Or rather, the twins in charge of themselves...)

Marnie wakes up and decides it's past time to fix the keyboard. Crossing her fingers (and hopefully not the wires this time), she sets to work. By the time she finishes, the twins are screaming about wanting breakfast, so she makes a bunch of omelets, and puts the spare food in the fridge.

Jaz gets home from school.. and stands for a moment, reveling in the fact that she came home with straight A's for the first time. She takes a moment to sniff the fall air, then heads inside to do her homework.

Benji comes home from school in a far worse mood. His grades finally fell off that last cliff before a passing grade. He's failing, and doesn't know how to get back to graduating status. Morosely, he looks at the homework he forgot on the table this morning, and heads over to work on some makeup homework. He also has an opportunity for extra credit, if he can find the funds to buy the materials for the project over the weekend. For a moment he wonders if he can just steal the ingredients from the store.. but the fleeting thought goes away as he struggles through some math problems in his workbook.

Finished with her homework for the entire weekend, Jaz goes to see what there might be for after school snacks, and - wonder of wonders - there actually are leftovers in the fridge! Grabbing some before they disappear, she marvels at the way her day is going. After earlier in the week, Jaz was so down she never thought another GOOD day would ever happen. Clearly, she needed to look on the positive side. She had finally worked up the nerve to ask for a hall pass in a different class today, so she'd even managed to get lunch and sit with her club friends again, too.

After filling her stomach, she knows she can spend some time on the science table, because the only other person who might be using it was downstairs with Marnie. She had the whole room to herself, which was pretty darn close to a perfect afternoon for her. Even the mice were staying in the walls for a change.

Speaking of Myles and Marnie, they were struggling through the rest of Myles' aspiration, since he needed several chess games to get past it. Marnie loved every minute of it, but I don't think Myles felt the same. Chess just wasn't what he wanted to be doing.

Upstairs, Benji had finished his math homework, and, instead of heading to the store to try to get ingredients for homework.. decided to spend some time playing a game with his brother. (No matter how hard I try to get Benji's needs up every evening, by the time he comes home from school, he is ALWAYS in the red, and I don't know why. Maybe it's just him.) He loses the first game, so they play a couple more.. and he finally wins one in the end. It doesn't help his mood, though, and he finally eats a salad of his own making (on his own), and crawls into bed miserably.

While Benji was eating, Phoenix takes a moment to tell Jaz about tomorrow's club meeting at the park, and both chat for a while before deciding it's way past bedtime. (Jaz has yet one more triumph before going to bed - she hits level 9 of Mental! Only one more to go!! Hooray! I might get this done after all!)

Day Eighteen < | Challenge Home Page | > Day Twenty